‘Vera’ by Elizabeth von Arnim    (1921) – 164 pages

The Vera in the title of this novel is dead before the novel begins. Vera supposedly fell out of the window of her upper floor sitting room. There was an inquest.

Vera’s husband’s name is Everard Wemyss.

Lucy Entwhistle has also suffered a loss. Her widowed father has just died, quite a loss for the 22 year-old Lucy.

It is as though Everard intentionally walked by her house in order to meet and commiserate with Lucy over their losses. Everard is a take-charge guy, and he uses their shared losses as a pretext to starting a relationship with Lucy, even though it has only been days since his first wife died.

“That settles it. We two stricken ones must fall together.”

Everard Wemyss is 45 years old.

From the beginning Lucy has doubts about Everard and his previous wife Vera, but Everard presses on with their relationship.

Here are some words that describe Everard : ruthless, domineering, merciless, cruel, without pity or compassion, malevolent, unrelenting, vindictive, demanding, trying. There is also “his extraordinary capacity for being offended”.

“for she had offended him again, and this time she couldn’t even remotely imagine how”

Still, he talks Lucy into marriage, although her friends express their doubts. Lucy is vulnerable, “unquestioningly acquiescent”.

After the wedding, Lucy must sleep in the bed Vera slept in and even use the sitting room where Vera met her tragic fate. Lucy begins to question if it was an accident.

Everard has an extensive library, but he doesn’t want anyone else, including his young wife, to read or mess up his books. If she wants to read one of his books she must ask him for the key, tell him what books she plans to read, and read them in the library itself.

In ‘Vera’, there is an undercurrent of laughing at this cruel fool, Everard Wemyss, who is so proud of himself, yet has no real understanding of what life is like. That is why ‘Vera’ is often called a dark comedy. Elizabeth von Arnim herself considered ‘Vera’ her “high water mark” as a writer, even higher than her widely read ‘The Enchanted April’.

‘Vera’ is very well-written and a scarily effective depiction of a very bad marriage. This one is vivid and you will remember it.

Grade:   A